


don’t you shut this down

by modernpatroclus



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 18:05:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7397914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modernpatroclus/pseuds/modernpatroclus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>prompt: Andreil + Only love by pvris?</p><p>Neil would kill him for this, some hazy part of his brain thinks as he slumps against the bathroom door. But Neil isn’t here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don’t you shut this down

**Author's Note:**

> **!!! tw: self-harm and a suicide attempt**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> this takes place during neil’s senior year/andrew’s first year in the pros

Andrew Minyard doesn’t need people.

He doesn’t need them to help him, or fix him, or save him. He doesn’t need them at all.

It’s always been this way, since he was a quiet kid bouncing between shitty foster homes. And it’ll stay this way until he dies.

Andrew doesn’t need people, and he definitely doesn’t miss them.

He doesn’t miss the Foxes, with their intolerable need to _fight_ , to _defend_ even him, though he has only ever tried to weigh them down on the court and push them away off of it. He doesn’t miss Nicky, with his obnoxiously enthusiastic vigor in _everything_. He doesn’t miss Aaron, with his contempt for things he refuses to accept, because that would mean admitting that he actually cares (Andrew refuses to admit how similar his twin sounds to himself in this habit). He doesn’t miss Kevin, with his insufferable obsession with Exy and need to _livebreathelive_ the sport at all times.

Most of all, Andrew doesn’t miss Neil.

He doesn’t miss the way he’d argue strategy with Kevin, who’s always so hell-bent on playing the perfect game, while Neil just chases the rush of actually being able to _play_ the game. He doesn’t miss Neil’s smirk when Andrew shivers from Neil’s lips on his neck. He doesn’t miss how Neil gets antsy when he stays still for more than a few minutes, so he’ll go for a run but come back every time. He doesn’t miss how Neil never oversteps, because he _knows_ that a “yes” is fragile, that it needs reaffirmation, that a “no” is not a personal slight.

He doesn’t miss anything about Neil. Andrew hates him.

These are the things Andrew reminds himself when he notices his breathing quicken when he watches Neil take a particularly rough check from the game on his hotel TV. He reminds himself when he wakes in the middle of the night from a nightmare and remembers that Neil isn’t here, that Neil is back at Palmetto, and Andrew feels a pang of what is Definitely Not disappointment.

And it’s what he tells himself now, laying in a bed in yet another nondescript hotel room, unable to sleep because he can’t shut off his brain.

It’s one of those nights that, when he was younger and still living with the Spears, Andrew would have reached for a blade to cut through his thoughts because he needs the familiarity of physical pain and the control that comes with self-infliction.

Letting himself find a home with Cass was overwhelming as a teenager. Now, at 25, feeling at home with Neil is no less foreign. But he’s not _afraid_ , because just as he doesn’t miss or love or care, Andrew Minyard doesn’t do fear. Fear means admitting that it affects him, means admitting weakness. And just like fear is weakness, so is giving into these thoughts.

So instead of doing something he shouldn’t – reaching for a blade – or doing something he should – calling Neil or Bee – Andrew lays in silence and lets his thoughts fester in the dark.

* * *

He must’ve fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing Andrew knows, he’s gasping awake from a nightmare and shooting out of bed in blind panic and looking for something, anything he can use to just turn it all off.

He doesn’t register the orange light of the sunrise filtering through the off-white curtains, signaling that the team will have to be up and moving soon to hit the road on time.

His hands shake as he takes the blade to his wrist, but when the blood flows, his mind stops racing and he allows himself to _feel_. If he went too far, Andrew can’t find it in himself to care just then.

Neil would kill him for this, some hazy part of his brain thinks as he slumps against the bathroom door. But Neil isn’t here, and just as Andrew doesn’t need Neil, Neil doesn’t need him. He’s under Moriyama protection now. Neil’s got a few more months with the Foxes, and then he’ll have his pick of pro teams and say yes to Court when the offer comes. He’ll get to play Exy for the rest of his life, like he’s always dreamed but never thought he could. He’ll play until he physically can’t anymore, and then he’ll retire and pursue some other Exy-related thing. For once, he’ll be fine.

* * *

The only reason Neil gets the phone call is because being separated from the rest of his family (the original Foxes) has made him much more apt to answer his phone.

The number is unfamiliar, and in Neil’s experience, that’s never a good sign. He catalogues the 6:09 am on the screen as he answers.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Josten?” The voice is unfamiliar, male, and serious.

Neil sits up, kicking aside the tangle of sheets wrapped around his legs as he makes for the ladder to his bunk. “Yes?”

“I’m calling from Northside hospital in Atlanta,” he begins.

Neil snaps at him with an, “And?” when the guy pauses. He already knows where this is going. Andrew played in Atlanta last night.

“You’re listed as Andrew Minyard’s emergency contact.” Neil has to swallow the lump in his throat before he can reply. He closes his eyes against the building pressure in his head.

“I know. What happened?”

Too-long silence.

“He was found bleeding out in a hotel room at 5:30 this morning. There was a single laceration–”

Neil doesn’t need him to say it; he’s got a pretty good idea of what happened. Before the man can go into any more detail, Neil interrupts with the only thing he needs to know right now. Because he can’t breathe until he knows. “Is he alive?”

“Yes.” Neil exhales, forces himself to breathe evenly. “He’s stable. That’s all the information I can release over the phone, though. You’ll have to come in if you want to learn more, I’m afraid.” He sounds apologetic, but for no reason. Neil is already pulling on his shoes and grabbing his keys.

“What’s the address?”

* * *

Flying would have been quicker, but there was no way Neil would have been able to sit through even an hour of silence on an airplane. He needed the control of driving, the distraction from his panicked thoughts. The time to figure out what to _say_ to Andrew when he sees him. (Though he hadn’t gotten far on that one.)

When Neil finally reaches the hospital, it’s far later than he’d have liked, but also expected because of the constant traffic in the city.

“I’m here to see Andrew Minyard,” he tells the receptionist. When he speaks, Neil recognizes the voice from the phone. He learns the room number and takes the stairs, out of patience for the elevator.

Neil gives himself fifteen seconds to steel himself outside of the room before going in. No one else is in the room, and Neil knows Andrew would’ve kicked his team out. Neil had called Wymack on the drive down, explaining why he wouldn’t be at practice for, at the least, today. Coach had promised to call Nicky and Aaron for him so that Neil wouldn’t have to deal with it, so he doesn’t know when Aaron will make it down. Nicky will probably have to contend with a phone call because flying down would: a) cost too much, and b) not warrant any more reaction from Andrew than a phone call.

When he looks up, Andrew gives Neil a blank stare. It’s empty in a way Neil hasn’t had to see in nearly three years. He’s too pale, and Neil feels the blood leave his own face at the sight.

Before his knees buckle under him, he pulls a chair up next to the bed, hyperaware of Andrew’s leaden stare on him. Andrew doesn’t say anything, but Neil knew he wouldn’t.

But when Neil tries to say something, there’s a lump in his throat he can’t get around. Andrew watches Neil struggle in silence for all of thirty seconds before he puts his hand over Neil’s mouth, as if Neil was any closer to finding words.

All he says is, “I’m not going to apologize.”

Hearing Andrew’s voice triggers something in Neil. He puts his own hand on top of Andrew’s and gently pulls them both away. “I know. And I’m not going to ask you to, because there’s nothing to apologize for.”

They’re not even close to the words he’d planned out on the drive down, the anger and the hurt and the terror of _what if they hadn’t found him in time_ the only thing driving his mind forward. But as he says them, he knows he means them. Neil knows how much Andrew bottles up inside himself, years of pain and rage he only lets slip when they become too much.

Neil knows too well how feelings can fester just under the surface until something triggers them and they explode without warning or permission. It’s how he’d let his temper get the better of him so often with Riko and the press his freshman year. He’d never been allowed to be anything but complacent around his mother because to be outspoken was to paint a target on their backs.

“Do you wish it worked?” Neil asks. He sounds far less steady than Andrew when he answers.

“No.” Neil studies his face for any hint of a lie, but he knows he won’t find any. Andrew doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean, and even though the situation is far more complicated than a simple “no,” Andrew is also not in the business of regret or wanting. He knows, then, how it must’ve been a moment of relapse, crushing enough for him to give in despite years of progress.

“Bad night?” Neil asks.

Andrew nods, and he looks younger than even when they’d first met. The emptiness is gone, and in its place there’s something vulnerable in Andrew’s eyes, something he’s only letting Neil see because Andrew knows Neil won’t comment on it or press.

“What do you need from me?”

Andrew is silent for long enough that Neil stops waiting for an answer, but then Andrew moves over on his bed in a request he’d never voice. Neil lays down next to him slowly, giving him time to change his mind or stop Neil before he gets too close. Andrew doesn’t say a word, and when Neil relaxes and opens his arms, Andrew moves into them, pillowing his head on Neil’s chest.

It’s a position they’ve laid in countless times, but it’s usually the other way around, with Andrew’s arms steady around Neil. Andrew has only sought this kind of comfort from Neil a handful of times. Andrew never says anything about it after, and Neil follows his lead.

Neither of them say anything for so long that they both drift in and out of sleep. When they’re both awake sometime later, though, Andrew whispers something Neil would’ve thought he’d misheard if not for the dead silence of the room around them.

“Thank you.”

Neil isn’t sure exactly what he’d done to warrant it, but he’s not going to make Andrew any more vulnerable by asking for an explanation.

Instead, he tells Andrew about the team and how the younger Foxes are finally starting to band together, and about the first offer he’s received for a pro team after graduation. Andrew occasionally makes noises of acknowledgment or scoffs at Neil’s go-to Exy topics.

When Neil hesitates for too long at one point, Andrew shifts and looks at Neil in silent question. He raises an eyebrow and says, “Don’t tell me you’ve run out of Exy-related conversations,” he says dryly.

Neil huffs a laugh and recovers enough to say, “I’ve been thinking about where I’m gonna live next year.”

Andrew stills.

“I mean, it’ll depend on who I sign with, obviously, but I was also thinking…” he trails off nervously, gesturing vaguely with his hands at nothing in particular.

Andrew watches him struggle in something akin to amusement. “Are you going to ask me?”

Neil exhales in relief. If Andrew didn’t want this, he wouldn’t keep the line of conversation going. “Do you want to move in together? I know you like Columbia, but if neither of us play in South Carolina I was thinking maybe we could get an apartment in the middle or something,” he rambles, still nervous despite Andrew’s brand of encouragement.

“Yes, idiot.”

Neil laughs then, an actual laugh for the first time since getting woken that morning with that awful phone call. For the first time in longer than he can really remember, actually – it’s been a rocky year for both of them.

“Yes or no?” Andrew offers, and Neil breathes out a “yes,” leaning up to meet Andrew so that he doesn’t turn and put pressure on his injured arm.


End file.
